The artist

             

I was born naturally with music inside me. 

Sometimes, I wonder what my life would be like without music, and just imagining it brings a deep sense of emptiness and discomfort. I don’t think we are necessarily born with gifts; we are born with signs. Signs that point to our life’s purpose indicate how we self-regulate and find a way to help others and ourselves. After all, art is nothing but a language of our emotions.

A dance, a song, a poem, a painting on canvas are personal messages from the artist, expressing their pains, joys, deep passions, and fears. And since the language of emotions is universal, it resonates in each person as if it were made specifically for them, for that moment, for that emotion that now connects with the emotion expressed by the artist.

I am not genuinely a dancer, but I am an artist. However, as someone who is a survivor of their own life, I have so much inside of me, deep emotions, that I cannot keep them all to myself.

I think that’s what makes someone an artist. You need to release from within you when you have so many emotions, overcoming challenges, learning, pain, and feelings. And so, we leave them in our music, in our books, on our canvases, in our dance. But the most beautiful thing about art is that, although it starts from the individual, it is far from serving only the artist’s personal purpose.

Art is service. Even though we may often, for various reasons, keep it to ourselves, when we do, it loses its full function, which is emotional communication. It’s about touching people and making them face their pains, joys, feelings, and sorrows. Art is revolutionary and subliminal.

It speaks to that part of people that they never share with anyone, that which is well hidden inside them. But because they are touched and receive the message in their emotions, they feel a subtle desire to change what no longer serves them. Art is the vehicle of human evolution.

I’ve had a connection with Arabic music since I was very young. Maybe because the sound of the drums resets my spirit, or because of an instrumental that speaks to me, or maybe because I feel hypnotized by belly dance, or maybe due to some past life memory. I think when I danced alone at home, it was a moment I had to connect with myself, with that part of me that I did everything to hide, even from myself sometimes, but which deep down brought me immense joy when remembered.

The fact is, I was 30 kilos overweight for a long time in my life. Sometimes, I would lose 5 or 7 kilos and then regain it. Instead of looking at and facing my dissatisfaction, I hid it. I hid it in the best angles for photos or in clothes that could disguise the fact that my appearance no longer pleased me.

Changing the body has little to do with following diets or going to the gym. We like to separate everything, thinking that food, relationships, professional careers, and environments we choose are categories we can manage. But in reality, we deal with them based on a single set of beliefs and choices. We behave the same way in different areas of our lives.

But every time I accepted that any type of food entered my body, even knowing it would harm me, I also chose partners or relationships out of need. I also accepted abusive words. I also accepted being in places that didn’t do me well. I also allowed people to put me down. I also accepted that I should not position myself on what was important to me. I accepted indignities.

I ignored what harmed me, maybe because I thought it was customary at that moment in my life, but I was just very far from myself. A single behavior, a single belief, led every aspect of my life.

Every time I overrated or found some other escape valve that led to a lifestyle that wasn’t what I wanted, it was a way for me to feed the invisibility I was trying to reach as an attempt to disappear from the world because all I could see were pains.

I hid under the fat because, unconsciously, I didn’t want to show that I had lost love for myself and was just counting the days until my stay here on Earth ended. I didn’t want to see the days pass, and instead of facing the problem and looking at myself, at all the details in my body and mind that I wanted to change, I ran away.

I always danced at home. I never took a class. I simply feel happy when I dance, and nowadays, I like to nourish the best of me and the best of both sides. My emotions no longer control me; I learned to use them to my advantage. I started recording myself to make it a habit to look at myself and never forget where I’ve been and where I will never return. However, some time ago, I would never have had the courage to express myself publicly through my body because I feared criticism, as I didn’t even like what I saw.

Today, none of that bothers me anymore because I know that those who mock, search for flaws, criticize, well... For them, I only wish that whatever I do that bothers them so much be a point of communication with the emotions they hide from themselves. And may those emotions show them what they also want to do for themselves but, for some reason, they still can’t, or haven’t yet had the courage to do.

It’s still hard for me today to look at photos from when I was overweight, not necessarily because of my appearance, but mainly because seeing them reminds me of how I spent so much time not caring for myself, how I ignored the fact that it was a sign that I wasn’t well with myself. However, scars are reminders of our lessons, and they should not be seen as signs that we once failed ourselves but as proof that we overcame them.

I no longer feel shame, neither for myself nor for my body, because I have learned that the body is just the reflection of the mind. They are not separate. I am proud of myself and all the changes I’ve made in my life, even though many of the people who were part of my past still miss my old invisibility, which was interesting to them and served them in some way, whether by convenience or identification.

You will not find me in my past because I stopped living there long ago. I was reborn. And in this new life, instead of anxiously counting the days until my death, I appreciate and thank each new day for the experiences and the opportunity to do things differently every day.

Everything that happened to me was just to make me more of an artist.

I hope my art is servient.